he _Hitachi_. To
begin with, all the single men of military age from the _Hitachi_ were
accommodated on the 'tween decks, and slept in hammocks which they had
to sling themselves. The elder men among them slept in bunks taken from
the _Hitachi_, but the quarters of all in the 'tween decks were very
restricted; there was no privacy, no convenience, and only a screen
divided the European and Japanese quarters. The condition of our
fellow-countrymen from the _Hitachi_ was now the reverse of enviable,
though it was a great deal better than that of the crews of the captured
ships, who were "accommodated" under the poop--where the Captains and
officers captured had quarters to themselves--and exercised on the poop
and well deck, the port side of which was reserved for the Japanese. The
Germans did not forbid us to enter the quarters where our
fellow-passengers were confined, but it was obvious that they did not
like our doing so, after the lies they had told us concerning the
wonderful alterations made in these quarters for their prisoners'
"comfort." One day I managed to sneak unobserved into the prisoners'
quarters under the poop in the 'tween decks, where hundreds of men were
confined, but I had the misfortune to run up against the Lieutenant in
charge and was promptly ordered out before I could have a good look
round. But I had seen enough! Both the men under the poop and our
fellow-passengers had armed guards over them--those guarding the latter
were good fellows and quite friendly and helpful to their charges.

There were now more than four hundred prisoners on board, mostly
British, some of whom had been captured in the February previous, as the
_Wolf_ had left Germany in November 1916, the _Hitachi_ being the tenth
prize taken. The condition in which these prisoners lived cannot be too
strongly condemned. The heat in the tropics was insufferable, the
overcrowding abominable, and on the poop there was hardly room to move.
While anchored near Sunday Island in the Pacific some months earlier,
two of the British prisoners taken from the first prize captured
managed to escape. Their absence was not noticed by the Germans till a
fortnight later, as up to then there had been no daily roll-call, an
omission which was at once rectified directly these two men were noted
missing. As a punishment, the prisoners aft were no longer allowed to
exercise on the poop, but were kept below. The heat and stifling
atmosphere were inconceiv